The present invention generally relates to an assembling apparatus for assembling and simply processing components and, more particularly to a component assembling apparatus effective in use to produce a quantity of a new product which is too small in quantity to justify automation before the product is actually brought into full scale production on a commercial basis.
Conventionally, in manufacturing a new product, people must manually assemble the components before a quantity of sales of the product is expected which is sufficient to justify automation. Automation, including installation of robots, etc., is started only after good prospects for the sales of the product are offered. That is, mass production of the product is realized step by step.
Hereinbelow, a conventional component assembling apparatus for use in establishing a mass production system will be described with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a plan view of the conventional component assembling apparatus. In the drawing, a positioning tool 3 which positions and holds a component 2 is intermittently transferred by a tool transferring device 1. The stopping positions of the positioning tool 3 during the intermittent transfer thereof are arranged parallel to the transferring device 1 and corresponding to the positions of robots 4 which perform predetermined operations, respectively. Although each robot 4 performs a predetermined operation, the operation is fundamentally composed of one step or two to three steps of procedures at most. Therefore, the robots 4 are aligned sequentially in order from step 1 (S1) to step 11 (S11), in order to produce a product. At Step 1, a motor 11 is mounted to a base 13 formed of resin and having three pins 12a, 12b, 12c for use in mounting gears as shown in FIG. 2. A worm gear 10 is preliminarily pressed onto a main shaft of the motor 11. At Step 2, with the motor 11 mounted to the base 13, the assembled body is fixedly secured by two screws 14. At Step 3, the height of the head of each screw 14 is measured to determine whether each screw 14 is properly engaged. At Step 4, a unit 15 defined by the motor 11 and the base 13 (referred to as a base unit hereinafter) is rotated 90.degree.. At Step 5, grease is applied to the three pins 12a, 12b, 12c of the base unit 15. At Step 6, one first gear 16a is mounted onto the mount pin 12a. At Step 7, a third gear 16c is mounted onto the mount pin 12c. At Step 8, a second gear 16b is mounted onto the pin 12b. At Step 9, a washer 17 is fixed over the second gear 16b so as to prevent detachment of the second gear 16b. At Step 10, the height of the washer 17 is detected so as to determine whether the washer 17 is properly mounted. At Step 11, grease is applied to each position at which the first to third gears 16a, 16b, 16c are meshed.
With the mass production system of the production line in the structure described above, it is difficult to meet the recent diversifying trend of consumers' tastes. It is not easy to switch the equipment to an expanded scale or a reduced scale or to convert it for a different use, but such switching and conversion is necessary because the life cycle of products has become considerably shortened and the product easily and quickly made to the commonplace these days. As such, the valuable automated system increasingly proves of no use.